Wheatley's Redemption: No Redemption Line Involved (Android Version)
by GreatWolfSpirit
Summary: When the Guardians get sucked down into the Aperture Science Enrichment Center and meet the various core that live there, hijinks are bound to happen. The questions on all their minds, though, is why they're there, how they got there, and whether they'll be able to get back out again. It's going to be a crazy ride. Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the Guardians or Portal...
1. Another Courtesy Call

Jack Frost lay asleep in a tree near his lake in Burgess, his staff cradled in his arms like a stuffed animal. Curled up on the branch he was laying on, the white haired, blue hoodie clad teen spirit was completely unaware of the shadow that crept up the tree behind him in the pre-dawn twilight. The shadow soon gained shape, forming into a tall, lanky man who wore black robes and had black hair, grey skin, and golden eyes. Pitch Black, for that was the man's name, silently slipped Jack's staff out of his arms and suddenly shoved him off the branch as an orange rimmed hole opened up in the ground below the limb. With his work done, Pitch slipped away just as suddenly and silently as he'd arrived, taking Jack's staff with him and leaving no sign that he'd ever been there.

Jack fell into the hole and, before he'd even had the chance to fully awaken, found himself falling down into a room from another hole in its ceiling, the two holes connecting and forming a sort of tunnel. The boy lay senseless on the floor for a moment before glancing up, still dazed, to see the hole disappear without a trace. As he sat up slowly, rubbing his head and jaw gingerly, a knock on the room's nearby door caught his attention just before it opened and a man poked his head in, peeking around before stepping into the room. The man was tall and lanky, had medium length golden blonde hair that verged on being light brown, had sapphire blue eyes which almost seemed to glow in the dark room, wore a white lab coat with a blue tie, had wire-frame glasses which had rectangular lenses, and wore black shoes. As the man caught sight of Jack staring half-stunnedly up at him from the floor, he froze in his tracks and started shouting, speaking in a strong British accent. "Oy! Who in the bloody 'eck are you?! 'Ow'd you get in 'ere?! I can't bloody well believe this! I just got back from bloody space and already there's whacky stuff goin' on and people fallin' from the bloody ceiling! Oh... Oh dear... The... Is.. Is the... Is the ceiling malfunctioning again? Oh... Man alive, I hope it's not... I don't wanna have to talk to Her again!"

Jack blinked bemusedly up at him for a moment, trying to gather his wits. "Who's 'Her' exactly? And who're you for that matter? I'm Jack Frost. Nice to meet ya."

The man chuckled softly and gave him a friendly grin. "I'm Wheatley. Nice to know you can talk, Mate. The last test subject I looked after couldn't. I asked her say 'apple' and she jumped! Can you believe that? Bloody mad!" Jack couldn't stop himself from laughing at that, but he calmed himself as Wheatley continued. "Anyways, 'Her' is the gal that runs this whole place. She's really bloody terrifying... So... 'Ow'd you get in 'ere any'ow?"

Jack grinned and shrugged. "To be honest, I have absolutely no clue. One moment I'm fast asleep in a tree and the next thing I know, I'm falling out of the tree, into this hole in the ground, out of a hole in the ceiling here, and landing on the floor. The really weird thing is, the holes looked colored around the edges... It may have just seemed that way because I was still half-asleep and really out of it, but the edges of the first one looked orange and, just before the one in the ceiling disappeared, just before you came in, I could swear the edges were blue..." Jack trailed off, contemplating the strange events that had unfolded so far. Wheatley looked unsettled and when Jack noticed, he looked up at him curiously. "What's up?"

Wheatley chuckled nervously and shrugged. "The sky?" He laughed along with the teen for a moment before he sighed, raking a hand through his hair and ruffling it up. "Seriously, though, those colored holes you mentioned sound an awful lot like portals to me..."

Jack cocked his head in curiosity, a quick, bird-like movement which was a trait that he'd picked up from spending a lot of time with Toothiana and Baby Tooth along with the other little faeries that helped collect teeth. "Portals? What do you mean?"

Wheatley shrugged once more, looking as confused as Jack. "I don't understand 'em much myownself, honestly. About all I can tell you is that they're hole-like things that you can put on things using a special gun, and they connect together to make a sort of tunnel-like thing that can take you from one portal to the other. It's bloody brilliant really!"

Jack couldn't keep himself from looking impressed. "That does sound useful. Say... Where exactly am I, anyways? This doesn't look like any place I've ever seen before..."

At the question, Wheatley looked nervous again and glanced about warily before moving closer, kneeling down, and whispering very quietly to Jack. "This, Mate, is the Aperture Science Enrichment Center, and please believe me when I say that you do not want to stick around 'ere. We need to get you out of 'ere."

Jack grew nervous and uneasy at Wheatley's response, a wave of fear creeping over and threatening to engulf him. He tried his best not to show it and his confusion made the feat slightly easier. He was rather proud of his ability to keep his voice from shaking as he spoke, trying to make himself sound casual and unconcerned. "Why? What's so bad about this place? It seems alright to me."

Wheatley's straightened up and stiffened, his eyes wide in shock. "What's so bad?! Jack-o, 'aven't ye 'eard the rumors and stories about this place, Mate?!"

Taken aback by his new friend's intense reaction and feeling like he was missing something very important, the young winter sprite shrugged uncomfortably. "I've never heard of anything by the name of Aperture before..."

Wheatley blinked and scratched the back of his head. "Never heard of Aperture? I could'a sworn we were rather infamous..." He sighed. "Mate... This place used to run tests all the time and had several people participating in them... Only, well... a lot of the tests were... um... well a bit dangerous, if I'm honest, and uh... most of the test subjects...well... they died..."

Jack's unease grew with the revelation and he couldn't stop himself from tensing and shivering as he looked around him, seeing his surroundings in a new and suddenly sinister light. The fear only intensified when he looked around frantically for his staff and couldn't find it anywhere. Wheatley noticed the boy's anxiety and shuffled closer to him, laying a hand on his shoulder in hopes of reassuring and comforting him. When Jack looked back up at him, his icy blue eyes were wide and dilated with the fear that washed over him in waves, nearly overtaking and overwhelming him. He couldn't keep his voice steady this time. It shook as he spoke and was very quiet, the young spirit's instincts screaming at him to not let himself be overheard. "Do you know how to get out of here then? Can you help me?"

Wheatley nodded and gave a warm, reassuring smile. "Aye, just follow me, Mate. You stick with Ol' Wheatley and ye'll be outta 'ere in no time, Pal." Jack nodded with a weak grin and stood up very slowly, his legs wobbling and threatening to give way beneath him. Wheatley noticed this and helped him to his feet after standing up himself, giving the boy a few moments to steady and compose himself. When he took off, running out of the room and down a hallway, the winter sprite was running right behind him and following him closely.

The two friends traveled like that in relative silence for awhile before Wheatley stopped and looked around, seeming nervous. When Jack paused next to him and looked up at him curiously, the core sighed. "Okay, cards on the table... I got bad news, Mate. Looks like, in order to get you out of 'ere, we're gonna need to go through some of the old testing tracks... Again..." When Jack's expression shifted from questioning to confused, Wheatley decided to clarify. "Ye see, 'round about a year ago, I helped a test subject escape from 'ere. Chell was her name, if I remember right. She's the test subject I mentioned earlier that couldn't speak. Any'ow, in order to escape, she had to get a portal gun which was in the old testing tracks. Matter o' fact, we should probably get you that old portal gun... According to my sensors, it should be back in old tracks somewhere..." Wheatley looked the door in front of them over thoroughly. "Hmm... Umm... Yeah... Looks like I'm gonna have to hack this door in order to open it... Oh well. Shouldn't be a problem. Now let me see here... Maybe it needs a password... Oh, oh! I know, I know, I know! Open Sesame!" Wheatley and Jack both watched the door for a beat, but it didn't so much as twitch, let alone open.

Jack sighed and shrugged. "And here I thought that always worked..."

The man, which Jack now suspected to actually be an android given his implication of having sensors, gave a sigh of his own as well before backing up a ways. "Right then. I'm gonna have to break out the hard core, expert level hacking maneuvers... I didn't wanna have to do this but you asked for it, Mate! You brought it on yourself!", Wheatley said to the door before letting out a war cry and charging at it at full speed. The door opened with a grating noise and a hiss just before Wheatley collided with it which caused him to halt on the spot and spin to look back at the door in surprise. "Oh... Must've scared it open... Um... Just like I planned actually..."

Jack chuckled and gave a friendly roll of his eyes with a kind grin on his face as he followed his friend into the room. "Whatever you say, Pal." Once inside, he stopped and looked around the gloomy chamber warily. It was a dark, medium sized room with vines dangling from the ceiling and growing along the walls. There was a stack of metal cubes laying in there as well.

Seeing nothing threatening, he stepped further into the room and unknowingly crossed into the path of a red laser sight that he hadn't noticed before Wheatley could warn him or stop him. When he heard a child-like voice call out into the eerie silence, "Target Acquired", however, Jack scrambled frantically to get out of the way. He leapt behind the stack of cubes as a spray bullets was fired off. Peeking around the stack, he shivered when the same innocent sounding voice called out again. "...Are you still there...?" Jack resisted the brief temptation to answer it, ducked back behind the cubes, and turned his attention, instead, to Wheatley who had jogged over, as quickly and stealthily as he could, with concern written all over his features. Before he could speak, however, Jack did. "Now what do we do?! How in the world can we get passed that thing without getting shot?" Wheatley thought for a moment before perking up and clapping his hands, nearly bouncing around in his excitement. "Oh, oh! I know! When Chell ran into some of those turrets, she'd just knock 'em down!" Jack perked up at hearing that and grinned, an idea forming in his mind. Using his powers, even though they were somewhat limited by the loss of his staff which acted as a conduit for them, he managed to summon a snowball into his hand which Wheatley eyed curiously. He risked another peek at the turret before hurling the snowball at it with all of his might. The snowball collided with the turret in a burst of snow and knocked it over. After a spray of bullets, the turret shut down with a quiet "I don't hate you" which made Jack feel guilty. After looking around for more turrets and not seeing any of them or their tell-tale lasers, Jack cautiously crept out from his hiding spot and walked over to the fallen turret. He stared down at it for a moment before grabbing it, setting it upright, and giving it a gentle pat on its shiny, white hull. When he noticed Wheatley staring at him with a mixture of curiosity, incredulity, and even awe, Jack shrugged nonchalantly. "I felt bad knocking it over like that. I couldn't bring myself to just leave it."

The core gave a soft, amused chuckle and shook his head in admiration. "You're a strange one, Mate. Anyone else wouldn't 'ave thought twice about knocking it over and leaving it. I suppose you're at least a good kind of strange. Come on now. Follow me an' let's get outta 'ere." As Wheatley took off running again, the immortal teen followed him while dragging his hand along the wall which made frost bloom from his fingertips and curl along the wall after him. Wheatley watched with amazement as the fern-like patterns wove their way along the wall with a soft, light crackling sound. "Corr... That's somethin' else, Mate... 'Ow'd ye do that?"

Jack grinned sheepishly and shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck in a shy gesture. "Just a perk of being the Spirit of Winter. Thought I'd brighten things up a bit in here."

Wheatley chuckled and guided the boy out of the room through a panel in the wall that he'd opened, leading him into a big, open space that was full of metal catwalks, railing, and pipes which criss-crossed their way through the area. Jack looked around with curiosity and amazement written plainly across his features, something that made his friend chuckle. He wandered along the catwalk for a few moments, feeling the cold, hard metal beneath his feet as he followed Wheatley. Suddenly the boy grinned and sprung into the air before landing smoothly and lightly on the handrail in a crouch, his toes curling instinctively around the rail to keep him balanced. The height did nothing to faze him in the slightest and he grinned as he leaned over to get a better look at what lay below him. Wheatley shuddered at the dizzying drop even though he kept firmly to the center of the catwalk which ensured that he was in no danger of falling. "Yeah, the place is huge. It goes down for miles and miles underground. Pretty spooky huh?"

Jack chuckled and turned to him with a grin, his previous fear of the place now vanished. "No way; this is great. What's down there? Do you know?"

Wheatley gave a shrug. "I've never actually been down there myself, Mate, so all I could tell you is things I've heard; rumors and stories mostly. Apparently that's an old section of Aperture, the original testing facilities and whatnot, that was quarantined and sealed off years and years ago. It was just abandoned for some odd reason. I'm not sure anyone, even She, knows why, really."

Jack pondered that information for a moment, wondering what made the lower parts of the lab more dangerous than the small portion he'd seen so far of the higher levels. "Whatever made them close it off must've been pretty bad, even worse than the turret things that are up here. I wonder what..."

"I couldn't tell ya, Mate. I just 'ave no clue," Wheatley responded quietly. He wandered off along the catwalk with Jack following him while walking on the handrail. This made the android nervous at first, knowing he might be unable to catch the boy if he fell, so he watched him carefully. After several moments passed and Jack managed to jog along the handrail without even the slightest hint of losing his balance, Wheatley relaxed and turned back around.

Jack glanced around, feeling a bit uneasy. Biting he lip, he decided to voice his thoughts to his friend. "Does it feel like we're being watched to you?"

Wheatley gave a rather dry chuckle. "Oh I'm sure we are, Jack-o. She's got bloody cameras all over the flippin' place in 'ere."

Spotting one of said cameras, Jack grinned and summoned up a snowball before hurling it at the camera, hitting it right on the lens. The boy and android both laughed before jumping startledly when a computerized, mostly monotone female voice spoke out. "Please refrain from attacking, damaging, and otherwise destroying laboratory equipment. Thank you."

Jack looked around for the source of the voice when he noticed Wheatley shivering and whimpering, curling in on himself while trying to stay standing. When the android sensed his friend's questioning gaze, he sighed. "That's Her... The gal that runs this place... She's the one I've been warnin' ya about, Mate..."

The winter spirit shivered at the revelation and looked around warily, jumping again when the voice spoke up once more. "You are Jack Frost correct?" At the boy's hesitant nod, it continued. "I am GLaDOS. I run and oversee the testing here at the Aperture Science Enrichment Center. I am sure you're wondering why you are here, correct?" When Jack nodded again, GLaDOS proceeded to explain. "You were summoned down here because I want you to run a few tests. I have a bit of a problem and was told you could help; I wish to see if this is true. You will, of course, be free to go afterwords as will your friends."

Jack stiffened at her last words. "My friends? They're down here too?! Are they alright?!"

GLaDOS chuckled dryly. "Oh they're just fine for the moment. And they'll continue to be so long as they keep their wits about them in the test chambers."

Jack relaxed marginally with the reassurance and then sighed. "I suppose I have no choice then... What do you need me to do? What sort of problem am I supposed to be helping you with exactly?"

"Just run the tests that I will have Wheatley accompany you through. The problem is none of your concern for the time being. Good luck."

When a clicking noise sounded over the intercom, signaling that the connection had been cut off, the two friends sighed, Jack giving a shrug. "Well now what?"

Wheatley gave a shrug of his own. "I guess we go run those tests. Ye think ye can 'andle 'em."

The teen chuckled and grinned. "Bring 'em on. I have the feeling this is going to be fun."


	2. I Hope You're Well Rested

In another part of the lab, Sanderson Mansnoozie stretched with a silent yawn. The little man looked to be wearing clothes made of golden sand, and he was gazing about in curiosity. He jumped, startled, when the door burst open and a young boy of about ten years old with yellow blonde hair and yellow eyes came running in. The boy wore wire-frame glasses with rectangular lenses and a white jumpsuit with white tennis shoes. He skidded to a stop before Sandy and grinned brightly, revealing a gap in his top row of teeth on the left side. When he spoke, his voice was as bright and full of energy as he himself was. "Hi, Mister! Guess where I was! Go ahead, bet you can't guess it!" When Sandy smiled and shrugged, the boy giggled and clapped his hands gleefully. "SPAAAAACCCEEE!"

Sandy chuckled silently at the boy's enthusiasm and gave him a gentle pat on the head which caused another round of bright giggles to bubble up from him. Still giggling, the boy grinned his gap-toothed smile and spoke again. "Space was fun. Space was fun. Wanna go back to space. Make peace with more aliens. Wanna go to space. Bap. Bap bap. Bap. Wanna go to space. Gotta get a portal gun." At the last word, Sandy tilted his head in confusion and made a picture of a handgun over his head with golden sand and formed a question mark next to it. The boy studied the image for a moment before shaking his head. "Nope. Nope. Portal gun. Nope. Bwoop." The boy looked to his left. "Bwoop!" He then turned his head to the right before facing Sandy again. "Makes portals." Sandy scratched his cheek thoughtfully for a moment before stiffening, exclamation marks forming over his head as he made pictures of holes with a sand replica of himself falling into one and out the other. Seeing this, the boy nodded brightly with a grin. "Yeah! Yeah! Portals. Portal gun. Gotta go to space." Sandy looked around the room as a feeling of foreboding swept over him. Seeing his nervousness, the boy shuffled closer and looked up at him curiously. "What's wrong, Mister?"

Sandy gestured around them with question marks forming over his head. Before the boy could answer, another voice spoke up, startling them both. "You are in the Aperture Science Computer-aided Enrichment Center", it said in a mostly monotone woman's voice. When Sandy jumped in fright and looked around for the source of the voice, it spoke again. "Hello, test subject. I am GLaDOS."

As Sandy gave a nervous wave in greeting, the boy piped up. "... Are you space?" When Sandy gave him an apologetic shrug and shook his head, he turned to look up toward a camera that was mounted on a wall of the room.

"I'm not space either", GLaDOS responded, having anticipated the boy's coming question. Sandy gave the child a gentle, consoling pat when a dejected look came over him. The Guardian of Dreams listened with unusual alertness when GLaDOS began to tell him why she brought him to the lab and started describing the tests that were in the facility.

When she finished her descriptions of the testing tracks and disconnected from the comm system, Sandy left the room while motioning for the boy to follow him which he did. "Gotta go to space!", the boy piped up happily. Sandy laughed silently and gave him a fond pat on the head which caused the child to giggle gleefully.

As the duo approached a door, they paused and looked at it curiously. GlaDOS's voice spoke out again, just before it slid open. "This test has been reconfigured especially for you." The door then opened to reveal a large, open room with a gap in the middle of the floor. The sound of a hatch opening above them caused them to look up as a hook was lowered from the ceiling to hang over the midway point of the gap.

Sandy studied the hook and chasm for a moment before flinging a whip of his Dreamsand at the hook and swinging himself over the large hole in the ground. The boy giggled and clapped gleefully. "Ohmygodohmygodohmygod! AWESOME!" Sandy grinned and bowed while tipping a hat made of his Dreamsand before unfastening his whip from the hook and wrapping it around the boy, using it to pull him gently over the gap. Looking around, Sandy spotted some tall, white tower looking things which stood on tripods and had a glowing red eye in their centers. The boy glanced over to where Sandy was staring and shrieked with alarm. "Turrets! Turrets! Gonna shoot ya!" Sandy stiffened with his own feeling of alarm and, just to confirm if he'd heard the statement correctly, made a sand picture of a gun firing a bullet. When the boy nodded frantically, adding in a "Yeahyeahyeah!" for good measure, he made a circle around the picture and a slash through the circle with a question mark next to the whole thing. The child had to study the image for a moment to decipher its meaning, but when he figured that out, he could only shrug. "Ummmm... I got nothin."

Sandy huffed silently and scratched his cheek as he thought. After a moment, he gave a shrug of his own, inadvertently flinging a whip of golden sand at one of the nearby turrets which caused it to topple over with a high pitched robotic scream and blindly fire off a shower of bullets. Sandy blinked in momentary surprise before grinning and clapping, quite pleased to have figured out how to deal with the new obstacles. The turret shut down with a quiet, almost innocent sounding "I'm sorry. I don't hate you". After a moment of it remaining still and quiet, Sandy carefully used his sand whip to pick the turret up and set it back on its legs, slipping silently past it while giving it a gentle pat on the hull. The space-obsessed boy followed close behind him, both of them keeping a wary eye out for more turrets.

The two of them soon came into a room with another large gap in the floor, with turrets in an alcove to the left, and a cube dispenser in another alcove off to the right. In front of them was a button that dispensed the cubes so Sandy cautiously pushed the button which caused a cube to fall into the alcove directly beneath the dispenser. With that out of the way, he then flung a sand whip at the turrets but it wouldn't reach far enough to do anything to them. He tried, instead, to aim the whip at the cube which succeeded in pulling the cube towards him. Suddenly getting an idea, he used the momentum of the already moving cube to his advantage and flung it towards the turrets. With a simultaneous outcry of "INCOMING!", the cube collided with the turrets and knocked them over like bowling pins which caused the gentle spirited Sandy to wince as they showered bullets and shut down.

The boy leapt into the air and cheered. "YEEEEEE-HAAAAAHHHHHHHH!" Sandy laughed silently at that and formed a cowboy hat out of sand on the boy's head which caused them both to laugh. The Guardian then pulled the boy to him and held onto him gently but firmly before swinging across the gap. Once they were safely on the other side, Sandy set the boy back on his feet and righted the turrets. The two of them glanced around again and spotted a second hook dangling from the ceiling which Sandy swung them across to reach the exit. The pair rode the elevator to the next test and stepped into the next chamber once it stopped and opened the doors.

Upon inspecting the room, Sandy saw a machine on the ground that was firing a laser. The machine was on a wheeled platform and appeared to be mobile, but could only be pushed or pulled and not rotated. The boy pointed to it. "Laser... laser... gotta shine somewhere..." Sandy smiled kindly and nodded in agreement before looking around some more. He then noticed a cube and button on the ground so, curiously, he pushed the cube onto the button which caused a turntable near the laser-projector to turn. It didn't move any further, though, so Sandy pulled the cube back off of the switch which caused it to turn back to its original position. Sandy then put the cube back onto the button and made his way over to the projector while the boy stared intently at the turntable. He pushed the projector onto the table and moved the cube back off of the button which turned the projector, shining the laser in the opposite direction of the beacon. After the duo looked for mirrors or other turntables and found nothing, they stared at the projector, trying to figure out how to point it the other way. To see what would happen, Sandy flicked the cube back off of the switch which caused the laser to face the east wall after turning 90 degrees in a counter-clockwise direction. Getting an idea, the Dream Guardian pulled the projector off of the table, put the cube on the switch, pushed the projector back onto the table, and removed the cube from the switch again. This caused the laser to shine into the beacon and open the door.

The pair cheered happily and jumped a bit when GLaDOS spoke up with a congratulatory "Good job." Sandy gave a grateful bow as the two climbed into the elevator which began moving upwards.

The boy looked around with wide, bright eyes. "Up. Up. Going up." Sandy gave a nod of agreement and chuckled silently when the child continued. "Space is up. Up. Going up." Getting an idea, Sandy formed stars and a crescent moon out of his Dreamsand and hovered them around the boy. The little android cheered and clapped happily. "SPPPPPPPPPPPPAAAAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCEEEEEEEEEEE! Oh wait... not space. That's not space." Sandy laughed silently at the boy's reaction before looking around the elevator and poking at the walls curiously while his little companion watched. When the elevator stopped and opened its doors, they both peeked out cautiously, looking warily around for more turrets.


	3. Of Fairies, Curiosity, and Facts

Toothiana stretched with a yawn as she awoke, looking around curiously. She smiled and stroked Baby Tooth gently as the tiny fairy dozed on the pillow next to her, for all intents and purposes, mother. As the haze of sleep wore off, Tooth snapped upright, sitting up suddenly and looking around in alarm. "That's odd... Where are we? And what was I doing asleep? I almost never sleep, especially not that deeply...", she muttered to herself as she stood up from the bed. Upon her feet touching the ground, Tooth's wings automatically sprung into action and she was soon hovering in the air. As Baby Tooth started to stir, Toothiana picked her up gently and cradled her in her hands. "You alright, Baby Tooth?" The tiny fairy nodded with a squeaky chirp which caused Tooth to smile in relief. "Oh good." When a knock sounded out from the door, Tooth jumped in surprise and clutched Baby Tooth to her chest protectively, calling out nervously, "Who's there?"

The door opened and a person's head poked in. "I am the Fact Droid. Greetings"

Tooth waved politely, but nervously. "I'm Tooth. Nice to meet you. Umm... Not to be rude, but since I can tell you're not quite human, what are you exactly?"

The man opened the door and stepped into the room. He had the appearance and build of an average thirty year old man, wore a lab coat and purple tie with jeans and sneakers, had wire-frame glasses with round lenses that covered green eyes which almost seemed to glow, and had black hair which was slicked back. He gave a smile. "The Fact Droid is not defective. Its facts are wholly accurate, and very interesting."

The statement caught Tooth off-guard as she blinked in surprise. "Oh dear..."

Not noticing his companion's response to his previous odd statement, the Fact Droid continued on. "The square root of a rope is a string."

Tooth gave a sigh and whispered to Baby Tooth, "I think the Fact Droid might actually be defective..." Baby Tooth gave a squeak in response as she shrugged, and only Tooth could understand the little fairy's chirping language.

"89% of magic tricks are not magic. Technically, they are sorcery", the android stated, his expression and voice indicating that he was completely serious.

Tooth stared at him, totally nonplussed. "I'll take your word for it. Say... Could you tell me where we are and how we got here?", she asked while motioning to herself and Baby Tooth who was now perched on her shoulder.

The Fact Droid nodded brightly. "Fact, you are in the Aperture Science Enrichment Center."

The Tooth Fairy tilted her head to the side contemplatively. "I see. …. No, I don't..."

"Fact, space does not exist", the android chimed brightly.

Toothiana face-palmed. as she muttered to Baby Tooth, "Now I know he's defective..."

"Contrary to popular belief, the Eskimo does not have 100 different words for snow. They do, however, have 234 words for fudge. The first commercial airline flight took to the air in 1914. Everyone involved screamed the entire way", Fact Droid continued on.

Tooth paled and turned slightly green at the last statement. "Oh dear Moon..."

Unaware of the fairy queen's discomfort, the android kept rambling on. "Fact, GLaDOS has been known to lie. The situation you are in is very dangerous."

Toothiana bit her lip to hold back her giggles before whispering to Baby Tooth who was perched on her shoulder. "If this is dangerous, I hate to see what he calls real danger. Though, I wonder who GLaDOS is... I've never heard that name before. Have you?" When Baby Tooth chirped and shrugged helplessly, Tooth gave a shrug of her own. "Oh well. If it's someone that lives around here, I guess we'll find out soon enough..."

"Gently cleaning the tongue twice a day is the most effective way to fight bad breath."

Tooth blinked in surprise before grinning. "I've heard that said before, yeah. Do you know anything else about teeth?"

The Fact Droid nodded with a friendly smile. "I do. An average person has 32 teeth. That number includes 4 wisdom teeth. They have 8 incisors, 4 canines, 12 molars and 8 pre-molars. A person gets two sets of teeth over the course of their lifetime."

The amiable fairy queen gave a happy nod of agreement. "That's all true. What else do you know?"

"40% of people over 65 years of age do not have all of their teeth."

Tooth gave a soft gasp. "Oh dear... That's not good..."

Fact Droid nodded. "Certain drugs will prevent you from being able to have teeth pulled."

Both fairies blinked in surprise and tilted their heads quizzically as Toothiana spoke up. "I didn't know that... I wonder what kinds..."

The friendly android shrugged. "That I do not know."

Tooth eyed the android thoughtfully. "How do you know so much about teeth anyways?"

The droid smiled. "I am a Fact Android. I generate facts."

"Do you have a name?"

The dark haired android shook his head. "No, I do not. Should I?"

The fairy queen stared at him thoughtfully for a moment. "Everybody has names. Hmm... You look like a Harold to me! I'll call you Harold!"

The newly dubbed Harold thought for a minute before smiling. "Alright then. Harold it is. Each tooth is attached to your jaw socket and has blood vessels and nerves. 2/3rd of the length your tooth is in the gum."

Toothiana grinned and nodded in agreement. "That's right. Do you know anything else?"

Harold gave a happy nod. "An average American spends 38.5 days brushing their teeth over a lifetime! Colgate Total toothpaste is the best selling toothpaste in the United States."

The tooth fairy froze and blinked in surprise for a moment before clapping happily. "Really? Wonderful! That's wonderful!"

Encouraged by his friend's cheerful reaction, the android piped up with another random fact. "9 out 10 experts agree that dying is fatal."

Toothiana laughed. "Well the one who disagrees would be right. My friend Jack died and was brought back to life."

Harold looked at her quizzically. "Jack? Jack who?"

"Jack Frost. He's a very good friend of mine."

Thinking for a moment, the android piped up. "Jack Frost is the personification of frost and cold weather, a variant of Old Man Winter held responsible for frosty weather, for nipping the nose and toes in such weather, coloring the foliage in autumn, and leaving fern-like patterns on cold windows in winter."

Tooth giggled and nodded. "That sounds more or less like Jack. He's not an old man, though. He's about eighteen or so, physically speaking."

Harold froze in surprise. "Real?! Jack Frost is real?!

Tooth laughed even harder. "Yeah, he's real alright."

The android paused for a moment. "Hmm... Looking up data from Test Subject Records... ... Fact, Jack Frost is in love with the Tooth Fairy."

Toothiana blushed heavily and froze on the spot. "Wh... Wha... What?!"

Before she could react any further, another voice spoke up over the comm system that ran through the facility. "I am glad to see that you have finally woken up, Test Subject. My sensors indicate that your vitals are stable. Very good. If you are ready, we can begin testing immediately."

Tooth reached up to pet Baby Tooth soothingly as the little fairy shrieked in alarm and landed on her shoulder to cuddle into her neck, shivering heavily with fright. Throwing an uncharacteristic glare at the wall for startling her little one since she couldn't see the actual owner of the voice, GLaDOS, the feisty fairy queen spoke up. "Testing? What do you mean testing? What are you testing me for?" Though she'd been attempting to sound bold, Toothiana's voice carried a note of wariness and uncertainty. Part of her wasn't so sure that she wanted to know what the testing was for.

Before the Tooth Fairy Queen could reconsider her question, though, GLaDOS started speaking in answer to it. "It is in my programming to test Aperture Science products, especially the Aperture Science Hand-Held Portal Device. That is where you come in. All you must do is follow the hallway to the testing tracks and solve the tests. Once you are finished, you are free to go."

Hearing the click of the comm connection being cut, Toothiana looked around and fluttered over to the door when she noticed it. Before she entered the hallway, she poked her head out the door cautiously to look around. Since she didn't see anything dangerous, she zipped out into the hall with Baby Tooth and Harold following her. The three of them traveled down the hallway in the direction that Harold indicated they should go to reach the testing tracks. When the trio reached the door, Tooth poked her head inside and looked around warily again. Harold whispered a warning to her. "Fact: GLaDOS' tests have been known to be very dangerous..." Tooth gave him a nod to show she heard him and then slipped inside.

The inside of the test chamber was relatively simple. The room was mostly barren aside from two buttons and a switch on the ceiling, the doors, a dispensing tube and an orange traction beam. When the door that they walked through automatically closed behind them, the three jumped in a brief moment of startled fright. As Toothiana looked up at the ceiling, wondering what everything was for, Baby Tooth zipped up and poked at one of the buttons with her tiny hands. When she accidentally pushed the button, a loud rumbling was heard for a short moment as a metal cube tumbled out of the tube and fell to the floor with a heavy clang and thud. The sudden commotion caused all three of them to jump a bit due to being startled by it. Once they recovered, however, Tooth glanced from the cube to the switch thoughtfully. Making note of the button Baby Tooth had pushed to make the cube fall, Toothiana flew up to the other button and pushed it tentatively. This caused the traction beam to reverse directions and turn blue in color. When Harold saw that the beam was now heading towards the switch instead of away from it, he pushed the cube into the beam and watched with a grin as the cube was carried up to the switch.

As soon as the switch was pressed by the cube, the doors on the other side of the room opened and GLaDOS' voice rang out through the chamber as she spoke over the comm system. "Congratulations on solving the test. Well done. Please proceed to the elevator which will carry you to the next chamber so that we may continue testing." Deciding it would be easiest to just go along with instructions instead of arguing or questioning, Toothiana shrugged and followed Harold to the elevator with Baby Tooth sitting perched on her shoulder.

The trio walked down a metal staircase and into a small circular room with an elevator shaft and elevator right in the center. Just as they were about to step into the elevator, a small sniffling sound echoed through the room which made Toothiana stop and look around as her maternal instincts flared up. Huddled against the wall behind the elevator was a little girl who looked about ten years old and had black hair that hung to her shoulders. Tooth made her way over to the girl and knelt down next to her, gently laying a hand on her shoulder. "Hey there, Little One. What's the matter? Are you lost?" When the girl looked up at her with watery eyes and nodded timidly,Tooth gave her a warm and reassuring smile. "It's alright. Why don't you come with my friends and me? Maybe we can help you."

The girl looked between them all for a moment, sizing them up warily before deeming them safe and nodding with a small smile. "Okay... Thank you..." She stood up with Tooth and held her hand as they walked over to join Harold, the Fact Droid, and Baby Tooth.

Tooth held her hand and smiled down at her. "It's no problem at all. Do you have a name?"

The girl nodded. "Most people call me the Curiosity Droid, but some of them also call me Virginia."

Tooth gave a soft chuckle as she led the small group into the elevator. "Virginia it is then."


End file.
